Why I Oughta...

I spotted this 20" heated bird bath on a pedestal at Wannemaker's earlier this month and it intrigued me in terms of upgrading our current winter heated birdbath that we keep right outside of our kitchen window.  This bowl is big (20") and comes with the integrated pedestal - you can see the product listing here on Amazon (ahem....that's not an affiliate link, folks!) with all the features/details. Here's a post from November of last year showing off the installation of our existing heated birdbath .  You'll note that it sits on a little table and isn't super deep.  The lack of a pedestal is (obviously) the reason for the table and I think that the table doesn't look awesome.   And since it isn't too terribly deep along with the low humidity in the cold winter meant that I had to continue to fill this thing up every few days. The one on the pedestal looks deeper, so I'm wondering if that means less filling?  That's good. But, the ...

There's no picture here, mostly because a photo of an upside down goldfish is gross and, frankly, a little sad.  Lucky, our goldfish is no more. I posted about Lucky back in 2016 when The Babe won her/him at Ribfest .  She/he lived in a bowl in Equation Boy/Man's house for a while, then we moved him/her into our place in Downers Grove.  The bowl sat on our vanity upstairs since we moved in. Welp, he/she succomb'd to something earlier this month and I noticed that he/she was acting funny and after spending a few days near the bottom of the bowl, started to float a bit.  Swimbladder problem is the most likely issue ( Thx, Google !) and after a short period of time, he/she appeared one morning near the top of the bowl.  The loss hit hard on a couple of the kids.  But only for an hour or two.  Then everyone seemingly moved on.  Feels to me like an inflection point:  we can go one of two ways. 1.  Don't look back and get out of th...

Last time we checked in on Lizzie was when she was wearing her third Elizabethan Collar after dealing with her rear end issue.  With the Holiday season in full swing, she's on her way to getting her 'Christmas Cut', so I thought I'd post this photo of her right before we shipped her off to the groomers.  She's wearing her winter coat.  And she's all dirty from chasing squirrels around the yard and up trees.  She hasn't caught one just yet, but she gets close.  I do wonder if the squirrels are playing her.  With the slow walk, staying just out of reach?  She'll come back from the groomer with a shorter coat (and one of those silly bandanas) and be all clean.  Probably a little bit cold for a while while it grows in, right?  But, come January, she'll have some of her fur grown back and ready to take on the winter.  Let's call this 2.25 years old . 

I've mentioned in all of the recent Lemax Christmas Village posts that Mantleburg isn't annexing any new structures into town this year and with the recent election of a slate of Libertarian candidates taking on new leadership roles in town, they've even moved to de-annex some existing portions of Mantleburg and just focus the town's operations on the seasonal train. This year, I've covered a handful of Lemax Christmas Village buildings that are part of the Menards holiday setup including: 1. Draft Brothers Craft Brewing Supplies Store from the Harvest Crossing Collection. 2. The Elf Workshop from Santa's Wonderland Village. 3. Nora's Christmas Boutique from the Caddington Village Collection. 4. The Round-up animated carnival ride from the Carnival Village Collection. The one in the post today is interesting because it *is* potentially train-related.  And that's why, despite their anti-growth/anti-government leanings the new Mayor and ...

Go out yonder, peace in the valley Come downtown, have to rumble in the alley Oh, you don't know the shape I'm in. Doesn't get much better than that song, right?  Go ahead...hit 'play',  then keep reading the rest of the post.   Those of you who have been following along at home over the years know about our Thanksgiving tradition of watching a little bit of The Band play live for their last show.   (Note:  I say "our" tradition, but Nat has made it *very* clear that this is *my* tradition alone...) I've been posting about it since 2004 here on the blog with a few years skipped.  Turns out, this is the 12th postin the series over the years. Here's my post from 2017 on The Last Waltz . Here's my post from 2016 on The Last Waltz . Here's my post from 2015 on The Last Waltz . Here's my post from 2014 on The Last Waltz . Here's my post from 2013 on The Last Waltz . Here's my post from 2012 on The Last Waltz . H...

Like a lot of you guys, I have a whole bunch of Christmas traditions.  Sure, there's the Christmas Train and all the various foodstuffs, but there's also one that is gardening-related:  Planting an amaryllis bulb.  Here's a post showing the two bulbs I planted last year (one from Wannemaker's and one from Menards) .  If you look at that post, you'll notice that the one from Menards - that cost $2.99 - never took off while the $15 version from Wannemakers shot up and bloomed right around Christmas Day.  This year, I simplified things and decided to just do one of these and (obviously) went with what worked last year and bought the $15 version from Wannemakers.  You can see how they pack the bulbs above in a kind of foam carriage to protect the bulb while keeping it free from trapping moisture.  When I was at the store recently, I couldn't remember what variety I bought last year, but remembered that I went with a double flowering version.  S...

Just a little bit over a week ago, I posted a photo here in the [garden diary] of our Frans Fontaine Columnar Hornbeam trees and discussed their potential marcescence (retaining of their dead leaves).  Fast forward to now and if you look at the photo above here, you'll notice that one of the trees - the fourth from the left - has now dropped all of its leaves and is bare.   I took a closer look at the tree and it has, indeed, put out some buds, so I am not sure if the leaf loss is a sign of anything.  But, we'll know in the Spring when/if the tree comes back.